Alioto-Pier can run for re-election, judge rules

Rachel Gordon, John Coté

Published 4:00 am, Friday, July 23, 2010

Photo: Eric Risberg, AP

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San Francisco City Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier smiles while being greeted before addressing a disaster volunteer summit at Fort Mason in San Francisco, Thursday, April 3, 2008. In San Francisco $1.1 million may not buy much real estate, but even here a plan to spend that amount to install a wheelchair ramp in City Hall has incited rancor and a political tug-of-war. The ramp would bring the Board of Supervisors' chambers into compliance with laws that govern wheelchair accessibility. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) less

San Francisco City Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier smiles while being greeted before addressing a disaster volunteer summit at Fort Mason in San Francisco, Thursday, April 3, 2008. In San Francisco $1.1 million ... more

Photo: Eric Risberg, AP

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San Francisco City Attorney, Dennis Herrera stands for a portrait near his office in S.F. City Hall, on Wednesday Feb. 11, 2009 in San Francisco, Calif.

San Francisco City Attorney, Dennis Herrera stands for a portrait near his office in S.F. City Hall, on Wednesday Feb. 11, 2009 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Alioto-Pier can run for re-election, judge rules

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A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pierhas the right to run for re-election, rejecting the city attorney's argument that the District Two representative is barred from running again because of term limits.

Judge Peter Buschruled that Alioto-Pier's argument that she can seek another four-year term in the November election "is consistent with the plain language of the (City) Charter."

A beaming Alioto-Pier said after the ruling that she and her legal and political team "feel great about it." City Attorney Dennis Herreramay appeal the ruling, his spokesman, Matt Dorsey, said outside the courtroom.

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The judge looked at the intent and language of San Francisco law that prohibits supervisors from serving more than two successive four-year terms, and Busch said voters "carefully distinguished" between time served by appointed and elected officeholders, and even after given the opportunity to change the language they did not.

If she hoped to stay in office, Alioto-Pier was required to run for election the following November to serve out Newsom's four-year term that ended in January 2007. She was re-elected in November 2006 to a four-year term that began in January 2007.

Several candidates already have been campaigning to replace Alioto-Pier, chief among them Janet Reilly, a former TV news anchor and department store executive who now serves as first vice president of the Golden Gate Bridge district board and is the wife of former political consultant Clint Reilly.

Job preservation: A boisterous crowd of more than 1,000 strong took to the steps of City Hall Thursday to call for the extension of a federal stimulus program that has put 3,600 San Franciscans back to work.

The real question is whether Republican U.S. senators will hear them, or care.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, who extols the virtues of the Jobs Now program to anyone who will listen, organized the rally at City Hall to showcase what he called a "family photo" of the people put to work and employers who have benefited.

The national program uses federal stimulus funds to pay wages if companies, nonprofits or city departments hire out-of-work parents, and 700 city employers have used the program to hire since May 2009.

"This is the most successful stimulus program in the country. It's a simple as that," Newsom told a raucous standing-room-only crowd that packed the North Light Court.

But funding for the program expires Sept. 30. While President Obama proposed an extension of Jobs Now, and the House of Representatives voted to appropriate $2.5 billion to extend the program another year, Senate Republicans stripped that provision from their version of the bill that extended unemployment benefits amid concern that the huge federal deficit needs to be reigned in.

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